Dr. Kamal Bawa Gets Midori 2014 Prize For Biodiversity

WASHINGTON: An evolutionary Indian ecologist, Kamal Bawa has won the prestigious USD 100,000 Midori Prize for biodiversity for his pioneering research, including in climate change in the Himalayas.

Photo: Wikipedia

The AEON Environmental Foundation, Japan, established the Midori Prize for Biodiversity in 2010, which is given to only three individuals, who have made outstanding contributions to conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity at global, regional or local levels.

Mr Bawa, 75, would be receiving the award in October, 2014 in Pyeongchang, South Korea, at COP-12, when India, current chair of the Conference of Parties (COP-11) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), will pass the baton to Korea, according to a media release from ATREE.

He is also the president of Bangalore-based environmental research organization ATREE (Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment).

" He has woken up local and global audiences to the perils of the loss of our natural wealth and its associated cultural wealth," Ganesan Balachander, Director of ATREE said.

"The prize underscores the importance of biodiversity to humanity and an inclusive and multidimensional approach to biodiversity conservation that my own research programme have advocated during the past few decades," he said.

Mr Bawa, who has taught at the University of Massachusetts for more than 40 years, had also received international recognition as the recipient of the first Gunnerus Award in Sustainability Science, a major international prize, in 2012.

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A lilac lovely in the sky

MARIANNE DE NAZARETH

A brush with history: With a butterfly Photo: Nitin R.

Nitin couldn’t believe his luck when he spotted the Lilac Silverline at Hesaraghatta Lake; especially since the last sighting of this butterfly was in 1903

Most undergraduate’s only concern is whether they have the required percentage of attendance and giving in their assignments in the nick of time. And then, you have Nitin R. who is doing his second year BSc at St. Joseph's College, whose entire life revolves around his course. “I am interested in butterflies, dragonflies and wildlife photography,” says Nitin.

With great excitement, Nitin reveals the story of a sighting of a rare butterfly and the subsequent photograph. “I had been to Hesaraghatta Lake on the December 23 as a part of the team which was doing a rapid impact assessment study on the Hesarghatta Habitat. When I initially saw Silverlines there, I thought they were the Common Shot Silverlines (Spindasis ictis). But later I observed that these Silverlines had a different flight pattern and perching preference. So I photographed one male and sent it to Krushnamegh Kunte of GKVK, Bangalore. He identified it as the Lilac Silverline (Apharitis lilacinus) and told me that the last known sighting was in 1903.”

According to Nitin, this butterfly is known to frequent open grasslands and fields and there is no particular habit preference that has been established by now. So the chances of spotting this butterfly, is more on open grasslands, in the morning.

Nitin goes on to explain that this butterfly was first described by Moore in 1884, based on a single male specimen from the collection of the Indian Museum, Calcutta whose origin was unknown.

The description according to Marshall and De Niceville (1890) is that the upperside of the male butterfly is marked with pale iridescent blue. And, the colour off the ground on the underside varies a good deal, with some a primrose-yellow and others inclined to ochre, blending into brick red.

Seshadri K. S., an ecologist based at ATREE, Bangalore, says, “Even as there is dearth of knowledge on this rare find, the Hesaraghatta Tank bed, where it was observed is already at risk. Every weekend, one can see up to 15 photographers driving on the tank bed in cars. This invariably leads to crushing of the host plants for butterflies.”

Kunte, PhD Ramanujan Fellow and Reader at National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS) Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), says, “There are many butterfly species that had historically been reported as rare in places such as Bangalore, the Nilgiris, Sikkim and the Khasi Hills. Many of these species have not been recorded in a long time and few people know what they look like. One such species was the Lilac Silverline, which was reported from Bangalore in several old books. So Nitin’s records are a pleasant surprise and I am very glad that this tiny and beautiful butterfly has persisted.

Kunte says that these sightings prove that there still is a breeding population of this rare species, which is important because this species is legally protected in India under Schedule II of the Wildlife (Protection) Act.

He hopes that local NGOs, nature enthusiasts and the Karnataka Forest Department will come together to protect this habitat for the rare birds and butterflies that are found there.

Origonal Post

Pictures: 7 Cat Species Found in 1 Forest—A Record

Leopard Spotted

Photograph courtesy Kashmira Kakati

Caught by a camera trap, a leopard prowls under the dense canopy of the Jeypore-Dehing lowland rain forest in the northeast Indian state of Assam (map).

Released in February, the picture was taken during a two-year survey supported by the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund, the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment, the Rufford Small Grants Foundation, and the Wildlife Conservation Society.

The research found seven cat species in a 354-square-mile (570-square-kilometer) range—the highest diversity of cat species yet photographed in a single area.

Wildlife biologist Kashmira Kakati had been studying the gibbons of Jeypore-Dehing and became curious about the predator tracks she kept finding on the ground.
"I said, I need to find out what's there," Kakati told National Geographic News. "Nobody had any clue. People who had been in the forest 30 years didn't know."

With 30 digital camera traps, Kakati captured not only the cats but a number of other rare forest animals between 2007 and 2009. "Even I was surprised by the result," she said. (See related pictures of a rare Chinese wildcat snapped by a camera trap.)

(Related: National Geographic's Big Cats Initiative.)

Cloudy Coat

Photograph courtesy Kashmira Kakati

The camera-trap pictures include this night shot of a rare clouded leopard, so named for the nimbus-like pattern of its coat.

The clouded leopard is listed as vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, which means the species faces a high risk of extinction. The cat's population is on the decline, mostly due to loss of habitat from deforestation. (See a picture of rare clouded leopard cubs born at a Virginia zoo.)

In Jeypore-Dehing, the cat is so seldom seen that local villagers don't even have a name for it, Kakati said.

Little Leopard

Photograph courtesy Kashmira Kakati

Seen in another Jeypore-Dehing camera-trap picture, the leopard cat is a diminutive and distant relative of the better-known spotted predator from which it takes its name.
The species is commonly recorded across its range in Asia, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Leopard cats are considered to have generally stable populations, except for a few subspecies that are close to extinction.

Golden Moment

Photograph courtesy Kashmira Kakati

The Jeypore-Dehing rain forest also houses the Asiatic golden cat, which is listed as near threatened—but on the verge of becoming vulnerable—by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

In addition to the seven cat species, Kakati's camera traps recorded 12 other carnivore species in the Jeypore-Dehing range, including a dhole, or Asiatic wild dog; the Malayan sun bear; and several species of the catlike mammal the civet.

Jungle Cat

Photograph courtesy Kashmira Kakati

The Jeypore-Dehing range is hemmed in by oil, coal, and logging operations that threaten wildlife, Kakati said. Just 69 square miles (111 square kilometers) of the forest, an area known as the Dehing-Patkai Wildlife Sanctuary, is off-limits to development.

In addition, some animals—including the jungle cat pictured above—appear to be migrating to Jeypore-Dehing from adjoining forests to escape severe poaching, Kakati said.

"The range has become a refuge," she said. "Somehow the animals have managed to hold on."

Rear March

Photograph courtesy Kashmira Kakati

The camera traps recorded about 45 species of mammals—including primates, deer, porcupines, wild pigs, and rodents—that likely serve as prey for the rain forest's carnivores, such as the female tiger pictured above. (Related: "India's Tigers Number Half as Many as Thought.")

Although many cat species are at risk due to poaching for their bones and pelts, people in Jeypore-Dehing don't hunt the cats themselves, Kakati said. But locals do poach the wild deer and pigs, cutting in on carnivores' food sources.

Spotty Protection

Photograph courtesy Kashmira Kakati

The researchers hope the discovery of so many rare cat species in Jeypore-Dehing, including this threatened marbled cat, will encourage the Indian government to protect a wider portion of the Eastern Himalaya region from development and poaching.

"The entire forest here should be protected as a single conservation landscape, free of disturbance and connected by wildlife corridors between the disjunct sections," Ravi Chellam, of the Wildlife Conservation Society's India Program, said in a statement.


—Dan Morrison
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